shall furnish a decision. Our reformers acted in this respect with singular wisdom. They thoroughly felt that their business was not to construct a new Church, but to repair and restore an old, decayed in many parts, and buried under rubbish in more. And they, therefore, proceeded with a discretion and a singleness of purpose, for which we can never be sufficiently thankful to God, to reject whatever the Bible and antiquity did not sanction, and to retain whatever they did; feeling that their business was to wage war with error, and their danger that, in rooting up the tares, they might root up also the wheat."

The Parent's Great Commission or Essays on Subjects connected with the Higher Part of Education. Second Edition. London: Longman. THE passing of this volume into a second edition is the best proof that can be adduced of its having attracted the attention of those to whom it is especially addressed, and it is well worthy of the reception it has met. We cordially commend it to the perusal, not merely of parents, but of all who are in any way connected with or entrusted in the education of the rising generation. We could have wished that the style had been characterized by more simplicity. It is occasionally stilted and never easy. It is, nevertheless, a very valuable series of essays, written in a right spirit and tending to the best possible results.

The Old Paths. Readings Founded on the First Five Homilies. Edited by A LAYMAN. London: Rivington. 1851.

THE editor has acquitted himself well of the task he has undertaken, and has given us a very useful little manual. He has appended to each homily an extract from the Articles, and a collect from the Book of Common Prayer, to exhibit the conformity of the three.

Papa and Mama's Easy Lessons on Geography. By ANNA MARIA SARGEANT. London: Dean.

THIS little book is admirably adapted for the instruction of children in the outlines of geography: it is profusely and appropriately illustrated with some well-executed wood cuts; while it is published at a price which will place it within the reach of nearly all classes.

Morning Meditations for a Family. London: Guillaume. 1850. DONE in a pious and fervent spirit: this little tract is a valuable addition to the class of publications to which it belongs. It has reached its second thousand.

The Monthly Packet of Evening Readings for the Younger Members of the English Church. Nos. IV. and V. London: Mozley. WE beg to impugn the right of restricting these "Readings" to the young; for we have been quite as much interested as as they can be by the contents of these numbers, which embrace illustrations of history and tales, with some pages on "Our Feathered Neighbours," alike attentive and instructing.

The Magazine for the Young. London: Mozley.

WE have only to acknowledge the receipt of the monthly numbers of this cheap publication, which sustains its character.

Tryphena and other Poems. By JOHN WILLIAM FLETCHER. London Pickering, 1851.

The

It is something in these utilitarian days to find in the multitude of books of versification with which the press is teeming something like an approach to poetry; and we discover something more than an approach to it in the volume before us. principal poem, "Tryphena," though by no means original in style and treatment, is nevertheless full of sweet feelings, pathos, and playful fancy. A stanza will justify our praise of it :

"She faded silently as fades a streak

Of summer lightning which a moment cleaves
The air, then vanishes; or, like the weak

And tender lily, when dark autumn weaves

Its winding sheet: upon her pallid cheek

There steals a fitful blush-her bosom heae s,
She tries in vain to speak, her eyelids close,
And softly, gently, sinks she to repose."

The reader may recognise a deficiency of vigour, but no want of feeling in these lines. The miscellaneous poems sometimes rise above, but more frequently fall short of, the standard of the verse we have quoted; and there is promise of better things.

Martyrs of the Reformation: a History of Martyrdoms, Confessions, and Sufferings, from the Dawn of the Reformation until the former part of the Nineteenth Century. By the Rev. W. H. RULE. London: Mason. 1851.

THIS valuable work came to hand too late, to allow of an extended notice equal to its importance. We hope to take it up in our next number; and in the meantime commend it to our readers as an accurate, deeply interesting, and well-timed publication, drawn from authentic sources.

W. E. Painter, Church and State Gazette Office, 342, Strand, London,

THE

CHURCH OF ENGLAND

Quarterly Review.

OCTOBER, MDCCCLI.

ART. I.-1. The Many Mansions in the House of the Father, Scripturally Discussed and Practically Considered. By G. S. FABER, B.D., Master of Sherburn Hospital, and Prebendary of Salisbury. London: Royston and Brown. 1851. 2. Hora Apocalyptica. By the Rev. E. B. ELLIOTT. Fourth Edition, Revised. Four Volumes, Octavo. London: Seeleys. 1851.

THERE never has been a time when instinctive apprehensions have taken a more general or a deeper hold on the spirits of men than the present time; and yet, with so little comparatively of a visible and tangible form in the circumstances wherein we stand, to be alleged as sufficient reason for creating so much alarm. The whole world is at peace, and the efforts of all statesmen are unceasingly directed towards the maintenance of these friendly relations between the different States, and towards the removal of any just or reasonable ground of offence. Commercial intercourse, which has increased to so marvellous an extent and that not by enriching one country at the expense of another, but to the advantage of all-has greatly tended to strengthen the bonds of amity, by teaching all nations how much it is to their common interest that peace should continue, as it is only during such a time that they can reap the full benefit of industry by the exchange of each other's commodities-the products of their various climates and soils. And the mere expense of war, setting aside the waste of life and other direct evils which accom

VOL. XXX,-R

pany it, by swallowing up in taxes funds which would be otherwise employed in manufactures and commerce, teaches all who have anything to lose or anything to pay, in a direct and palpable manner, the folly of their engaging in so expensive a game as long as war can be avoided by any honourable means.

But, notwithstanding these external symptoms of peace and prosperity, the minds of men are uneasy; and there is a general apprehension that the whole world is on the verge of some great calamity and that we are entering on a crisis the issues of which none can tell.

The Papal aggression on England is regarded as not limited to this country alone; but as indicative of the revival of the ancient spirit of that system which will now be carried out whenever an opportunity occurs in every land where the emissaries of Rome can gain a footing. It is only one sign of a determination, now come to, of re-assuming the dominion claimed by Hildebrande, and exercised by Innoeent III. and Boniface VIII.-claims which had lain dormant since the Reformation, but have never been abandoned; and the Pope has now resolved to hazard the desperate throw of "double or quits with the world.

The fire of the revolutionary mania of 1793, which reappeared in 1830 and 1848, is not extinguished; but smoulders still beneath its ashes, and waits but until some stir arises on the surface, or some strong gust of faction shall blow, to make it burst forth again in tenfold fury.

And the lust of arbitrary rule, under the specious forms of legitimacy and jure divino, is strong in a third party opposed to the former two; and shows itself still more openly in the avowed despotism of the black eagles of the north- -a party, this last, not so numerous as the other two, but which by its energy, organization, and concentration, bodes ill for the liberties of Europe.

Where such discordant principles exist in the spirits of men, the slightest collision in any one quarter of the earth, among any of these combustible elements, may produce an explosion involving the whole civilised world in a war of extermination, because it will be a war of principles.

Of the state of France, which was foremost in the last revolutionary movement, a competent authority has said, "It is a situation in which the boldest know not how to advance or the most timid to stand still. A Government under such conditions rests upon no institutions at all, but on the persons and accidents of the day. It is stamped with all the

vicissitudes of human life, and liable to perish by any of the accidents which may remove an individual or breed a sedition" (Times, June 28th, 1851).

Being Christians, and brought under such circumstances, we seem in an especial manner cast upon Providence ; and are disposed to look for guidance, with an interest quickened and enhanced by our present perplexities, to that volume which embodies all the revelations which God has been pleased to make concerning the course of events now before us, and the workings of those powers of good and evil through whose agency the present dispensation shall be brought to a close, and the coming of Christ shall be prepared-events of the last days, and which are more or less alluded to throughout all the prophetic books of holy Scripture; but are set in order, and given in detail, so as to become intelligible and useful, in the last book especially of the sacred canon, thence called the "Apocalypse."

The Scriptures are given, however, not in order to satisfy curiosity, but to sustain and guide the faith of the Church; and they are, therefore, intelligible to a greater or less degree in proportion to the amount of our faith. But, as our faith in unfulfilled prophecy ought to be strengthened in proportion to the number of prophecies which have been already accomplished, so the last generations of the Church will ne cessarily be held accountable for stronger assurance of the veracity of the word of God than the Christians of former ages; while the task of interpreting will become more and more easy since less will remain to be interpreted, and past fulfilments pave the way for understanding the meaning of those declarations which belong to the future.

Certain general principles must, notwithstanding, have been determined from the beginning as the groundwork of any interpretation: such as whether the coming of the Lord was literal and personal or merely figurative-whether the book was meant for all time and all ages of the Church, or only for the first generation. And questions such as these, which depend so much on the sense in which the words were first spoken, and the sense in which they were understood by the first hearers, were certainly best understood by the first generations of the Church, who derived their impressions from personal intercourse with the inspired writers of the New Testament, and who could not be mistaken in the impression which these writers meant to convey; and, judged by this test, the second coming of the Lord is to be understood as being unquestionably literal and personal; for this was the